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www.bgmhall.com - thrillers with a tech edgeenLoVed Veronica Mars moviehttp://bgmhall.com/loved-veronica-mars-movie
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I got into Veronica Mars late, mainly because I heard Joss Whedon was a fan <a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref1_k6nsrp4" title="That's also why I briefly started watching Glee, so he's batting 0.500 at present." href="#footnote1_k6nsrp4">1</a></p>
<p><em>Veronica Mars the series</em> combined witty characters, long-running and intertwined mysteries, with a healthy sense of humor, noir and movie references. The first season was great, second was good, third had a lot of potential but dropped season-long mysteries for two shorter ones and a bunch of standalones (at network insistence).</p>
<p>Then it was cancelled.</p>
<p>The funny thing was, it turned out that the show's <em>Marshmallow</em> fans had as much dedication as the <em>Browncoats</em>, keeping the spirit alive and, ultimately, thanks to equal enthusiasm from the creators and a Kickstarter campaign, getting a movie made.</p>
<p><em>Veronica Mars the movie</em> managed to re-capture lighting in the bottle, getting the elements that made the series great and squeezing it into one hour and forty-seven minutes. (although I have two quibbles - see below).</p>
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<p><strong>The mystery</strong> would have fit well into the show. It was a nice touch to make the inciting incident(s) the murders of two minor characters from a mid-season one episode. As Veronica is drawn into investigating it to help her ex-boyfriend Logan, she is forced to reacquire her investigative skills and learn how her hometown of Neptune has changed (answer: not for the better). Plenty of twists, mis-direction and surprises ensue, but the plot holds together.</p>
<p>But the <strong>characters</strong> are what the fans wanted and director Rob Thomas delivers, getting all of the regulars back, falling into their old patterns while acknowledging the passage of time. There's also a good sprinkling of small parts and cameos from Neptune's lesser-known inhabitants.<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref2_szwhfgo" title="But where was Backup?" href="#footnote2_szwhfgo">2</a></p>
<p><strong>Neptune</strong> also exists as a character. In addition to the mystery and human characters reconnecting, Thomas also plants the movie firmly in the world of the show, in a town where there's a brewing class war between the haves and the have-nots, where the cops are corrupt and the glamor town has a seedy side.</p>
<p>And there are some <strong>surprises</strong>. Seemingly out of nowhere, a couple of attacks injure some regular characters and wipe out some recurring ones, reminding us that Veronica's world is not Nancy Drew's - the stakes are high.</p>
<p>I raced to download Veronica Mars when it first was released and I wasn't disappointed, but I do have two quibbles:</p>
<p><strong>Logan "Top Gun" Echolls</strong> - seemingly out of nowhere, Neptune's resident psychotic jackass, with a long (if mainly petty) criminal record, history of recreational drug use and inattention to studies, turns out to be a US Navy fighter pilot when he's not dating singers and being accused of murder. WTF? There's noting in his background to suggest this as a career <a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref3_3zpulkh" title="While I might have bought it for Wallace, given his interest in aviation." href="#footnote3_3zpulkh">3</a> and the salary certainly wouldn't attract him. Sure, it gives us a couple of <em>An Officer and a Gentleman</em> and <em>A Few Good Men Jokes</em>, and he looks good in the dress whites, but why?</p>
<p><em>Where's the rest?</em> The movie puts Veronica back where she needs to be - at Mars Investigations, fighting injustice in a town that's full of it. It would have been a great pilot for a new series, and I know there're books coming and if it does well they might spring for another movie or two, but like <strong>Serenity</strong> it just whets the appetite for what might have been if the show had continued.</p>
<p>Still, it was a fun couple of hours and I'm glad they made it, so I'll just look forward to more changes to visit Neptune.</p>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="footnote1_k6nsrp4"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref1_k6nsrp4">1.</a> That's also why I briefly started watching Glee, so he's batting 0.500 at present.</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote2_szwhfgo"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref2_szwhfgo">2.</a> But where was Backup?</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote3_3zpulkh"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref3_3zpulkh">3.</a> While I <em>might</em> have bought it for Wallace, given his interest in aviation.</li>
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Sun, 16 Mar 2014 03:55:40 +0000bgmhall64 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/loved-veronica-mars-movie#commentsDistracted by an infinity of BMFs?http://bgmhall.com/distracted-infinity-bmfs
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>It's been a while since I updated, mainly because of a concurrence of busy times in my day job and two community/voluntary activities I'm involved in, which have distracted me from writing. What time I've had free for writing has been focused on the first draft of <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/black-storm">Black Storm</a>, which is coming along nicely, rather than blogging.</p>
<p>So today I'll offer an observation on technology/geek toys and a single review:</p>
<p>My kids are getting into Disney Infinity, a PS3 game that allows them to play in a variety of Disney/Pixar movie worlds (Incredibles, Cars, Monsters University, Pirates, and Lone Ranger [not that we've bothered with that one]). Like Skylanders, Infinity uses the money-raising gimmick of selling the game and base unit, then charging people more to add characters to the world, in 1-, 2- or 3-packs, using real cash rather than in-game currency or achievements to unlock them. This seems to be catching on as a gamemakers' cashgrab, as the new Angry Birds Star Wars also has birds you can "teleport" into the game.</p>
<p>In addition to the Disney Infinity characters out now, the Toy Story gang and Mickey Mouse in his Fantasia outfit are coming soon. Since Disney owns both Marvel and Lucasfilm now, I'd bet dollars to donuts that in 2015 we'll see some Star Wars and Avengers characters coming out too.</p>
<p>Which led me to the realization that this could lead to a very cool 3-pack of characters: Mace Windu, Nick Fury and Frozone - <em>the BMF collection</em>?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Tracer-Meg-Gardiner/dp/0525953221">The Shadow Tracer</a>, Meg Gardiner, 5 stars<br />
Gardiner's 11th novel revisits the same themes as her first, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/China-Lake-Delaney-Novel-ebook/dp/B002V091L6">China Lake</a>: an aunt races to defend her niece/nephew from fundamentalist religious cultists from the other side of the family. In this case, Sarah Keller has raised Zoe since the newborn's mother was killed, using how-to-disappear tricks of the trade to stay hidden, while her day job of skip tracer involves finding others who don't want to be found.</p>
<p>A taut thriller that races around the mid-west, including a stint in Roswell, with a tense climax in an aircraft graveyard. My only complaint is that the resolution seemed a little rushed.</p>
<p>Strangely, while the e-book I bought refers to the author as Meg Gardiner in the text, the cover claims to be written by "M.G. Gardiner" - I'm not sure if this is a mid-career attempt to do a J.K. Rowling and appeal to males, or just a typo by the cover designer that the publisher stuck with!</p>
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Sat, 12 Oct 2013 09:44:41 +0000bgmhall63 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/distracted-infinity-bmfs#commentsLatest from King and Rowlinghttp://bgmhall.com/latest-king-and-rowling
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Two of my favorite authors have recently come out with some stories that don't fit their traditional genres, but are good reads nonetheless.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Calling-Cormoran-Strike-ebook/dp/B0091LLCTM">The Cuckoo's Calling</a> by Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling, 4 stars</p>
<p>I confess, I'm not one of the 1,500 people who tried out a new author, but one of the hundreds of thousands who bought this to read JK Rowling's new book. The big difference between this and The Casual Vacancy is that the Cuckoo's Calling is a detective thriller, the sort of book I read all of the time (and have written a couple myself), while I never would have picked up the earlier work if it wasn't by Harry Potter's creator.</p>
<p>Ex-Military Policeman Cormoran Strike, aided by his secretary/sidekick Robin Ellacott, investigates the apparent suicide of a supermodel, hired by her brother to prove she was murdered. The plot is twisty with an unexpected, but appropriate, ending and I enjoyed the fact that Rowling made it clear that Strike had solved the case about 75% of the way through the story, leaving the audience to try to guess the significance of his investigative actions and figure out what clues we'd missed along the way. I also enjoyed that she parceled out hints about Strike's past throughout the book, without giving all of his backstory away (I suspect saving a good portion of his history for further novels).</p>
<p>Cormoran and Robin are slightly offbeat characters who make wry observations about the world around them. To put it in the context of other detective stories, the vibe was similar to Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar, Robert Crais's Elvis Cole, and Meg Gardiner's Evan Delaney, rather than the more serious Harry Bosch or Tempe Brennan. There's also more than a hint of Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently (minus the SF/fantasy elements) in Cormoran's demeanor.</p>
<p>I'm glad Rowling got away with keeping her secret as long as she did, but wish it had stayed under wraps longer. It would have been great to discover Robert Galbraith as a new voice of detective fiction, only realizing after 5 or so books that it was JKR. I hope she keeps publishing the series, after all, Stephen King still lets Richard Bachman put a book out every few years.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Joyland-Hard-Case-Crime-Stephen/dp/1781162646">Joyland</a>, by Stephen King, 5 stars</p>
<p>Quintessential King: a coming of age story set in the past but narrated from the present, a young boy with supernatural gifts, an evil man hiding behind a kind face, plus some spooky stuff going on in an amusement park full of quirky characters who speak in a carny vernacular that would sound forced in a writer with lesser skill than King.</p>
<p>Another satisfying read from King. My only complaints are that it's short (by comparison to his other works) and not available as an e-book, as the Hard Case Crime imprint is in the retro-pulp fiction game.</p>
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Thu, 25 Jul 2013 11:08:01 +0000bgmhall62 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/latest-king-and-rowling#commentsAnother burst of reviewshttp://bgmhall.com/another-burst-reviews
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I've been busy reading and writing lately, but haven't caught up with my reviews, so here's a bunch of recent reads, most of which I loved.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Or-She-Dies-ebook/dp/B002TXZRAO/">Or She Dies</a>, by Gregg Hurwitz, 5 stars<br />
Very clever, taut thriller about Patrick Davis, a fired screenwriter who finds himself and his wife threatened by surveillance DVDs and cryptic e-mails, then begins to follow his tormentors' instructions and goes deeper into a conspiracy that sets him up as both a murderer and victim.</p>
<p>While the plot stretches plausibility in places, Hurwitz manages to keep driving it along, racheting up the tension with twist after twist. Plus, Hurwitz, who has written for both TV (V) and comic books (Batman), adds in a series of Hollywood inside information to make the story seem more real.</p>
<p>I blasted through this book very quickly, grabbed by the idea of trying to figure out what would happen next (and usually being side-swiped by unexpected twists).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Six-Years-ebook/dp/B00BPWAJJY/">Six Years</a>, by Harlen Coben, 5 stars<br />
Six years after being dumped and watching his girlfriend Natalie marry another man, Jake sees her supposed "husband" is dead and finds out he was deceived. So he breaks his promise to let it lie and tries to track Natalie down, along the way dealing with cops, criminals, torturers with a thing for using tools on their victims, and a secretive organisation that helps people disappear.</p>
<p>Another clever, witty, thriller from Coben, whose books I've enjoyed since first picking up a Myron Bolitar novel a few years back.</p>
<p><strong>Locke and Key - Volumes</strong> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Vol-Welcome-Lovecraft/dp/1600103847/">1</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Vol-Head-Games/dp/1600107613/">2</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Vol-Crown-Shadows/dp/1600109535/">3</a>, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez , 4 stars<br />
I read the first three collections of Locke and Key in a single weekend, devouring the twists and turns of Hill's story, as he gradually revealed more and more about the secrets of the house, the mysterious keys with their strange powers, telling each tale from the perspective of a different character.</p>
<p>Spooky, fun stuff.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Hit-ebook/dp/B00BL9861E/">The Hit</a>, by David Baldacci, 4 stars<br />
Will Robie, CIA assassin from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Innocent-David-Baldacci/dp/0446572985/">The Innocent</a>, is on the trail of Jessica Reel, a fellow assassin who has turned and is taking out her handlers. But Reel seems to have reason for her crimes, leading Robie to suspect he's on the wrong side.</p>
<p>Fast, taut thriller that races along, with alternating chapters told from Robie's and Reel's perspectives.</p>
<p>If it all kept up the pace of the first half I'd have given it five stars, but there's a section in the middle that just doesn't ring true and drew me right out of the narrative (Reel leaves some pretty obscure clues that Robie manages to figure out ridiculously easily).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Tokyo-previously-published-ebook/dp/B00BC8SPVK/">A Clean Kill in Tokyo</a> (aka Rain Fall), by Barry Eisler, 4 stars<br />
I first read Eisler's John Rain novels as library books many years ago, and have followed his career since, which is part of what inspired me to go down the e-book publishing route myself. He's now got the rights back to his early novels, so has reissued them with new titles (and, for a while at least, a great price) so I quickly bought the lot.</p>
<p>When I read this as <strong>Rain Fall</strong>, I loved the contradictions inherent in the character of Rain, an assassin with a conscience who tries to assist the daughter of one of his targets. A great source of information on CIA tradecraft, silent and natural-looking assassination techniques, and life in Japan a decade ago.</p>
<p>The only downside of this book is that Eisler spends a lot of time explaining the intricacies and corruption of the Japanese political system, which is probably necessary for his mostly-US readers, but slows the plot down. He handles such exposition much more subtly in his later books, suggesting this is just the learning curve of a first-time author.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lonely-Resurrection-previously-published-ebook/dp/B00BC4CZ6U/">A Lonely Resurrection</a> (aka Hard Rain), by Barry Eisler, 5 stars<br />
The second Rain book, previously called <strong>Hard Rain</strong>, drags him out of retirement in Brazil to Tokyo to take out a vicious yakuza member and underground fighter.</p>
<p>This picks up all the things that made the first book good, including CIA skulduggery, intricate descriptions of hand-to-hand combat, and Rain's battered conscience, with much less intrusive exposition about Japanese politics.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Winner-previously-published-Storm-ebook/dp/B00BC8T0NM/">Winner Take All</a> (aka Rain Storm), by Barry Eisler, 5 stars<br />
Rain is back, but now the lone wolf assassin has partners: Dox, the good-ole-boy ex-Marine sniper who may or may not betray him; and Delilah, the Mossad honey trap expert who needs him to delay his assassination until she gets key information from the target.</p>
<p>Rain is still the brooding assassin with a conscience, but Eisler now puts him in situations where he has to rely on others he doesn't trust, increasing the tension and also getting Rain to question his own approach to life.</p>
<p>This book, as <strong>Rain Storm</strong>, was my first introduction to Rain and Eisler about a decade ago, so its been fun to re-read it in sequence with more of an understanding of where the character has come from.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Redemption-previously-published-Killing-ebook/dp/B00BC8T5V4/">Redemption Games</a> (aka Killing Rain), by Barry Eisler, 5 stars<br />
John Rain chokes, unable to kill his target because the man's son interrupts. Is he getting too old, too soft, or just shaken by the fact that he now relies on Dox as a partner rather than just a contractor? And is Delilah, who set him up for the Mossad-ordered job, now going to turn on him?</p>
<p>Eisler explores Rain's motivations and confidence, keeping up the pace with a complicated set of characters from the CIA, Mossad, Japanese law enforcement and terrorist groups (and some who fit multiple categories). Lots of action but also lots of thinking, with a nice sting near the end that makes Rain re-think his personal life too.</p>
<p>Coming up next: King at the carney, more Eisler, and JK Rowling as a detective author!</p>
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Tue, 16 Jul 2013 18:41:44 +0000bgmhall61 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/another-burst-reviews#commentsBlue Prime infographichttp://bgmhall.com/blue-prime-infographic
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>My final new <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/whats-my-site">Wordle</a> graphic for a while: this is what you get when you read <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/blueprime">Blue Prime</a>.</p>
<p>To find out more, read the <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/blue-prime-preview-chapter">preview chapter here</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/kindle/dp/B00AND61M0/">buy now</a> from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/kindle/dp/B00AND61M0/">Amazon.com</a>.</p>
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Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:03:05 +0000bgmhall60 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/blue-prime-infographic#commentsProject-52 - the key wordshttp://bgmhall.com/project-52-key-words
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>It's a while since I published a <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/whats-my-site">Wordle</a> graphic that showed the <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/whats-my-site">words on my site</a>, so now it's time to show the words in my e-book mystery novella, <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/project-52">Project-52</a>.</p>
<p><em>What do you learn from it?</em> Well, "Hart", "Delano", "Deckard", "Dealer", "McQueen" (or is it just "Queen") and "Dice" seem to be names used a lot, and "killer", "killed" and "dead" make sense in a thriller, but why do "Chaotic", "AceOfSpades", "Hand", "Neon", "Hearts", "Diamonds", "Rimbaud" and "Cloudmaker" appear? And do I really use "Just" that often?</p>
<p><em>Want to find out more?</em> Read the <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/project-52-preview-chapter">preview chapter</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008IHDDBU">buy now</a> from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008IHDDBU">Amazon.com</a>.</p>
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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:29:46 +0000bgmhall59 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/project-52-key-words#commentsStar Trek into Spoilershttp://bgmhall.com/star-trek-spoilers
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I enjoyed watching the new Star Trek movie, finding myself neither in the camp who hated it because it violated established canon, nor in the crowd who proclaimed it "the best ST ever!". There was a lot to like, but also some things that just didn't work for me.</p>
<p>The Good:<br />
• Kirk/Spock/McCoy dialog and interactions - so much of the Big 3's exchanges <em>just felt right</em>, like I was watching a TOS episode from 45 years ago. Quinto and Urban just nail their characters, while Pine is a fairly good Kirk (I find it hard to believe I'm concerned that someone isn't a perfect imitation of Shatner, but … there's some...thing … missing).<br />
• The merging of elements of <em>Space Seed</em> and <em>The Wrath of Khan</em> - while the speculation was that the second new Trek movie would be a re-make of the second TOS movie, that would never have worked - you need the set-up and preferably 15+ years of space between the two. This film cleverly condensed the key elements of both - the original finding/thawing of Khan and his interactions with Kirk and co, then the wrath of Khan leading to the death of a major Enterprise character and the Kirk/Spock death/window scene. Some people hate the Kirk/Spock death swap, but to me that's part of why the JJ Abrams alternative timeline works - we know the parameters but the details can change.<br />
• Enterprise uniforms - a great updating of the original gold/blue/red pyjamas that look like they're made of a real, practical fabric.<br />
• The Audi reunion - just for a minute, it's great to see Nimoy and Quinto together. It also led to the best bit of criticism of the JJ-verse I've seen - a poster called Bryce on <a href="http://hijinksensue.com/2013/05/20/into-dickness/">Hijinks Ensue</a> who points out that in this universe Spock is cooler than he was in the original version, and gets Uhura, so "This entire universe is PrimeSpock writing fanfiction about himself."<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref1_8b8f0ba" title="Although IO9's is good too." href="#footnote1_8b8f0ba">1</a><br />
• The Enterprise rising out of the water - a cool shot that was cleverly intercut with the crashing vessel in the trailer to make it look like another Enterprise destruction.<br />
• Sherlock - sure, he's neither Indian nor Mexican, but Benedict Cumberpatch is a great actor to play Khan.<br />
• Into Darkness - the overall theme of the movie seems to be a battle of ideas about what Starfleet should be - a science-based NASA-like organisation or more of a battlefleet. In nearly 50 years of Trek, it's drifted back and forth between these goals so it was nice to have someone actually articulate the tradeoffs, in a post 9/11, post-UAV, post-Gitmo way.<br />
• The Tribble - because, even though it was purely the set up for a stupid plot device, who doesn't like a Tribble or two?</p>
<p>The Bad:<br />
• <em>Did either Khan's plot or Marcus's actually make any sense?</em> Even as I watched, I was thinking something was off, but the more I thought about it afterwards, the less I could buy. This may be a valid criticism of many movies, and many earlier Treks, but still I'm sure there could have been a way to service both basic ideas with more realism.<br />
• The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina">deus ex machina</a> (or <em>deus ex haemoglobin</em>?) - "oh, so Khan's blood can cure sick people? Wonder if that will come in useful if someone, I don't know, dies or something?" Clumsy, obvious, and leads to questions about why not use the other 70-odd frozen superhumans and doesn't this also mean we've created immortality (or certainly a long life) in the ST universe?<br />
• The Khan Misdirection<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref2_bfxci7b" title="Which sounds like a good name for a Robert Ludlum book." href="#footnote2_bfxci7b">2</a> - speculation for this movie has ranged from "Khan's in it", "Cumberpatch is playing Khan", "Cumberpatch is playing Harrison - who is Harrison?", "no, he's playing Khan - 'Harrison' is a code name" to, finally, "ok, so he's playing Harrison, but Harrison is really Khan". The writers claim that this was important so that the audience wasn't one step ahead of the characters, knowing that Khan was a powerful enemy and waiting for the crew to catch up, i.e. we needed to approach Khan with an early-Space Seed level of unawareness rather than a post-TWOK knowledge. I buy this to a point, but it doesn’t wash in a world of internet speculation, early reviews and second watchings. Then, it just looks like a long, slow misdirection when it could have been better to skip the terrorist angles and just have Khan be Khan.</p>
<p>The Ugly:<br />
• The Earth-based Starfleet uniforms. A huge contrast to the Enterprise ones, these were dull, drab, gray and had ugly hats. It's traditional for fans to hate every uniform change but I spent the first ten minutes watching the costumes thinking <em>I hope we don't see this for the next two hours</em>. This may have been the film-makers' intention - to contrast the dull Earth-based world with the excitement and color of space exploration - but it was just distracting and annoying.<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref3_y4rf4ny" title=" And without red shirts, how the hell did they know who was going to die? :-)" href="#footnote3_y4rf4ny">3</a></p>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="footnote1_8b8f0ba"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref1_8b8f0ba">1.</a> Although <a href="http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844">IO9's</a> is good too.</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote2_bfxci7b"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref2_bfxci7b">2.</a> Which sounds like a good name for a Robert Ludlum book.</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote3_y4rf4ny"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref3_y4rf4ny">3.</a> And without red shirts, how the hell did they know who was going to die? :-)</li>
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Sat, 25 May 2013 20:55:59 +0000bgmhall58 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/star-trek-spoilers#commentsMerry Christmas, Mr Starkhttp://bgmhall.com/merry-christmas-mr-stark
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I have a new favorite Christmas movie: <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300854">Iron Man 3</a>.</p>
<p>It used to be <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016">Die Hard</a>, as nothing says "the holiday season" like running around Nakatomi Plaza with a pistol Santa-taped to your back, hunting Severus Snape. True, you could make a good argument for Die Hard 2, Gremlins, Long Kiss Goodnight, Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (the last three all written by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000948">Shane Black</a>, who seems to have a Christmas theme in lots of his stuff) or even Eyes Wide Shut, but McClane was always top of my list.</p>
<p>But Iron Man 3 managed the perfect combination of action, gadgets, jokes, enough Christmas in the plot to make it important without laying it on too thick, a clever reveal on the Mandarin<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref1_e191qid" title="Which I'd heard rumored as a spoiler and thought &quot;just like in Batman Begins&quot; but the Marvel guys handled in a very smart way, effectively casting Ben Kingsley as a run-down version of himself." href="#footnote1_e191qid">1</a>, plus lots of Pepper action, self-deprecating humor and a great post-credit sequence.</p>
<p>Only downside is: now I have to revise a passage in Black Storm where a character refers to Die Hard as <em>her</em> favorite Christmas movie, because she would have the same reaction as I did.</p>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="footnote1_e191qid"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref1_e191qid">1.</a> Which I'd heard rumored as a spoiler and thought "just like in Batman Begins" but the Marvel guys handled in a very smart way, effectively casting Ben Kingsley as a run-down version of himself.</li>
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Sun, 28 Apr 2013 10:33:48 +0000bgmhall57 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/merry-christmas-mr-stark#comments5, 6, 7 - how adjusting my suspension of disbelief helped me enjoy Jack West Jr http://bgmhall.com/5-6-7-how-adjusting-my-suspension-disbelief-helped-me-enjoy-jack-west-jr
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I read a lot of novels for fun, but also dissect them in the back of my mind, thinking about the author's craft: what works, what doesn't, why he or she has made the choices they have and whether I can learn anything for my own writing.</p>
<p>I've just finished re-reading some books by <a href="www.matthewreilly.com">Matthew Reilly</a>, an author that I like in many respects, but find frustrating in others. I first discovered Reilly when he published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Area-7-ebook/dp/B000FA5S0W">Area 7</a> , finding it to be a fun read with some aspects that bothered me a little, then gradually collected his whole set.</p>
<p>There's a lot to like about Reilly. He self-published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Contest-ebook/dp/B000FA66TE">Contest</a>, caught the attention of mainstream publisher and went onto international success. He was an earlier adventurer in the e-book world, uploading free .pdfs of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hover-Car-Racer-ebook/dp/B008PQPV1O">Hover Car Racer</a> to his site way back in 2004. His style builds on the science-based techno-thrillers of Michael Crichton, military tactics of Tom Clancy, history/mystery of Dan Brown, secret agent gadgets of James Bond (more the movies than the Fleming novels) and shear action/adventure of Lucas &amp; Spielberg's Indiana Jones.</p>
<p>But, as I've noted <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/too-much-research">before</a>, if Stephen King is the (self-described) "literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries", then I doubt Reilly would object if I called him <em>the literary equivalent of Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay</em>.</p>
<!--break--><p>His Scarecrow series has a dubious relationship with laws of physics or realism - but it works on an escapist movie level: fast, fun reads with invincible heroes facing overwhelming odds, split-second escapes from traps and countdowns, and a hero who just enjoys blowing shit up. Ideal for reading on a long plane ride or blobbing out on the beach.</p>
<p>The above comment shouldn't be taken as diminishing my appreciation of the level of thinking Reilly puts into his books. It's not easy to write an action sequence that doesn't read like a thousand others, to create a new environment that catches the readers' imagination, to come up with a new take on a plot or idea that's been done a lot before<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref1_tjiinkd" title="I know this from experience, writing Blue Prime as an attempt to take the concept of a comic book superhero and put them in the real world." href="#footnote1_tjiinkd">1</a>. He also creates intricate plots, where seemingly minor details in the first third have payoffs later on, where various characters' allegiances shift over time, and the hero characters sometimes die (including some who <em>don’t</em> come back to life!).</p>
<p>When I first read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Deadly-Wonders-Matthew-Reilly/dp/1416505067">Seven Deadly Wonders</a> (7DW, or 7 <em>Ancient</em> Wonders if you're not in the US), I found it disappointing, even less connected with reality than Reilly's earlier works.</p>
<p>My take was that the problem is that he keeps trying to make everything bigger, faster, more exciting … and winds up stretching credibility beyond the breaking point.</p>
<p>Part of the fun of his earlier works was the intense, geographically claustrophobic settings - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Contest-ebook/dp/B000FA66TE">Contest</a> is basically Die Hard in a library [or Aliens vs Predators vs Humans, <em>in a library</em>]; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Temple-ebook/dp/B003J5653E">Temple</a> took its characters to a variety of settings in South America (and in two time periods); <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Station-ebook/dp/B003R50A0U">Ice Station</a> was mostly set in or around the titular facility in Antarctica; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Area-7-ebook/dp/B000FA5S0W">Area 7</a> was also focused around two Air Force bases in the desert and their nearby environs, including a lake, with a brief trip into space(!).</p>
<p>It was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scarecrow-ebook/dp/B000FC1BQU">Scarecrow</a>, the third book in the Shane Schofield series, where Reilly upped the ante: the story was a series of missions that took the lead character all over the world, at one point using an X-plane to travel supersonically. Bigger and faster, yes, but the epic scope diminished some of the tension.</p>
<p>7DW took the same approach, even more embiggened<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref2_0rtulip" title="This is a Simpsons joke rather than a typo." href="#footnote2_0rtulip">2</a>. Now the fate of the world is at stake, due to some doubletalk about a sunspot that zaps earth with intense solar flares every 4,500 years, which can be cancelled out by putting a golden capstone with a crystal in the middle on top of the Great Pyramid at Giza, to somehow absorb the radiation. Added to this is a prophecy/incantation around performing rituals on the top, to give power to a nation that puts its dirt in the capstone, thus triggering a battle between the US, Europe and the plucky group of small countries that have banded together, led by Jack West Jr, an Australian, to prevent the bigger powers getting <strong>even more power</strong>. The warring parties are guided by a pair of gifted kids - children of an oracle - with the mystical ability to read the ever-more-incomprehensible "Word of Thoth" inscriptions that provide clues, but these abilities are staggered so they can only read the clues just when the plot requires them too.</p>
<p>While his other books had fairly powerful McGuffins, this one takes the cake and moves it from his old stories set in a <em>semi-</em>realistic version of our world to a pulpy 1940s-era Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon-styled adventure with no attempt at being rational. Reilly uses the Arthur C. Clarke quote about <em>sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic</em> as an excuse, but it feels a lot like a mumbo-jumbo cop-out.</p>
<p>West and his crew - 9 in all, a deliberate echoing of Lord of the Rings, complete with an Arab/Israeli hate/like double act that mimics Gimli and Legolas - hunt the sections of the capstones, which are hidden in the 7 wonders of the ancient world, most of which have now been moved to unexpected locations.</p>
<p>Just as the stakes have risen, so have the gadgets, and here Reilly feels like a teenage boy playing "wouldn't it be cool if…". Jack has <em>his own 747</em>, which he stole from Saddam Hussein! But, it's armored with gun turrets - <em>cool!</em> And it has VTOL capability -<em>wow!!</em> And, get this, <strong>it's also stealth!!!</strong> - really?</p>
<p>He also one-ups Dan Brown by getting into Freemasons and the Roman Catholic Church - both turning out to actually be off-shoots of Egyptian sun-worshippers (!) - and makes the bad guys American and European.</p>
<p>Because so much is compressed into the book, everything feels rushed. If I had an idea for a daring raid to free a prisoner from Gitmo, or to steal something from the Vatican or the Louvre, I'd make that the climax of the story, a 50-page epic - and Reilly had similar set-pieces as the last acts in his previous books. Here, he knocks each of these off in a chapter or two, before moving onto the next even bigger mission.</p>
<p>If I was rating 7DW when I first read it, I probably would have given it only 2 stars out of 5. My recent re-read of it, and its follow-ups <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Six-Sacred-Stones-ebook/dp/B004V55GEU">Six Sacred Stones</a> (6SS) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Five-Greatest-Warriors-ebook/dp/B003R50A9Q">Five Greatest Warriors</a> (5GW), makes me knock it up to 3 stars, <strong>because I've figured out the right framework to think of it</strong> - in the spirit of Indiana Jones and the 1940s serials Lucas's adventurer was channelling. If I can face Indy dealing with the wrath of God from the ark, 20th century Thuggee worshippers, and the healing power of the holy grail<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref3_1jr6bi4" title="The less said about the crystal skull aliens the better." href="#footnote3_1jr6bi4">3</a>, then I should be able to handle the Tartarus sunspot, but 7DW still feels less well-rounded than Contest, Reilly's first, and IMHO best, novel.</p>
<p>6SS and 5GW ratchet the tension up further, relegating the sunspot from 7DW to a warm-up act to a huge dark sun that is coming back to the outskirts of the solar system to zap us with even more spooky radiation, unless West and his opponents can put diamond pillars into 6 vertices a super-ancient civilisation built underground to do this last time.</p>
<p>This pair include more bad guys, including West's father, the British royal family, Saudis, Romanovs, Japanese suicide cults and a cannibalistic African tribe; super-huge temples and inverted pyramids that make the seven wonders look tiny; Loch Ness and Stonehenge; a race against time spread over two large books; multiple betrayals and the devastating loss of a main character just when he's needed<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref4_et00df5" title="Think Gandalf the Grey, Kosh and Dumbledore." href="#footnote4_et00df5">4</a>; and plot points involving Moses, Jesus, Genghis Khan and Napoleon.</p>
<p>Some reviews have also criticised Reilly for a combination of ignorance and racism, given his characterisation of an African tribe as ruthless killers and cannibals, who engage in primitive rituals, forcing the hero characters to fight for their lives, and then basically become cannon fodder to the heroes, who ultimately mow them down with heavy weapons. While the above is true, aside from the cannibalism, the description applies to <em>all of the bad guy</em> characters in the book, including Americans/Freemasons, Russians, Europeans/Catholics, Israelis, Japanese and Saudis, so I think this is less about racism than Reilly's desire to make everyone an overwhelmingly scary opponent for West and his crew.</p>
<p>All this makes it seem that, if I found 7DW disappointing, I'd find its sequels worse. <strong>But I actually enjoyed them more and would give them 4 stars.</strong> Partly because I've accepted the nature of the overall plot, learning to live with the more out-there SF elements, but mainly because I think these two are better-plotted and just more fun to read. You can tell from the Afterword that Reilly had fun writing a two-book sequence, doing lots of set-up in 6SS that paid off nicely in 5GW, so the double-act worked.</p>
<p>Looking back at what I've written above, I think it comes down to re-setting my level of <strong>willingly suspension of disbelief</strong>.</p>
<p><em>All fiction requires the author to suspend disbelief in some ways, but there's a continuum depending on how far-removed from reality the plot is.</em> On a scale of 1-10, a non-fiction book, novelization of a real event or documentary would be a 1<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref5_4brns3g" title="Argo is a great, counter-intuitive example, in that Tony Mendez's book (and the Ben Affleck movie based on it) has a ridiculous plot that should have gotten Mendez laughed out of every publisher's office, but he had the ultimate defense in that it based on real events (even if the movie was somewhat adjusted for dramatic effect)." href="#footnote5_4brns3g">5</a>, while a full-on Star Wars-style space opera would be a 10. Star Wars is a great, fun movie, but it requires you to be in a mindset where you're ready to see: parallel evolution of humans on other worlds, some very non-human-looking aliens, aliens speaking English, faster-than-light travel using hyperspace, planet destroying weapons, laser weapons, cyborgs, and the power of the Force.</p>
<p>Most of the fiction I read would cluster at the lower-end of the suspension of disbelief continuum. Michael Connelly and Kathy Reichs, for instance, write police/forensics thrillers that incorporate anecdotes from cops and scientists into their plots to give them an element of reality. It's the evilness of the criminals, and the fact that Harry Bosch and Tempe Brennan seem to be attacked by the bad guys at least once a year, that require suspension of disbelief, putting their stories at a 2 or 3 on the continuum.</p>
<p>Other writers like Jeffrey Deaver or Tom Clancy still base their work on a lot of research, but tend to use more fantastic bad guys or incredible escapes, putting them at a 4 or 5 on the continuum. I'd have rated the original Ian Fleming James Bond stories around a 5, while the movie Bond's escapades go beyond that to rate a 007 (naturally) in terms of suspension of disbelief. In the upper reaches of the continuum comes the sci-fi stories, which may include some plausible extrapolations of today's science - most of Arthur C. Clarke's books would be 6 to 8, while Back to the Future, Terminator, Firefly, B5 and Star Trek hover around the 8 or 9 mark. Space opera, Oz stories or Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy-style books that adjust their reality to fit the jokes, would rate a 10 - this doesn’t mean they're bad, it just means you don't go in expecting a documentary narrated by Stephen Hawking.</p>
<p>Coming back to Reilly, I'd pitch his earlier books at around the James Bond movie mark of 7 on the continuum - enough implausible escapes and pseudo-science to let you know you're reading a fantastic adventure, but they all at least attempt to provide a scientific explanation for the craziness. The West books introduce dark suns, Earth-zapping sunspots and ancient races with magic-like machines, so are closer the to full-suspension of disbelief end of the spectrum - say a 9.</p>
<p>That swap in tone, moving from high adventure close to fantasy, is what threw me reading 7DW. I suspect this is the same reaction many people had to the ending of Chris Nolan's first between-Batman movie, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571">The Prestige</a>, which has SF elements hinted at throughout but still surprised and pissed off many people when they were revealed in the final minutes<a class="see-footnote" id="footnoteref6_p35onf3" title="I loved The Prestige - it's a very clever and well-acted movie that sets up two mysteries and resolves them in ways that seem surprising, but are actually exactly what the characters have been saying since they were first presented - very clever story-telling." href="#footnote6_p35onf3">6</a>.</p>
<p>So, once I was re-reading the West books, knowing exactly what genre Reilly was playing in, I found them more enjoyable - it just required me to re-set my expectations (in pretty much the opposite direction to when I read J.K. Rowling's <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/rowling-reilly-comic-con-and-assassins-bunch-reviews">The Casual Vacancy</a> - remove fantasy lens, apply cold, hard reality). Overall, I still prefer 6SS and 5GH to 7DW, primarily because Reilly's story is much more carefully plotted and feels less rushed when spread over two books.</p>
<p>I also found it good that <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scarecrow-Army-Thieves-Matthew-Reilly/dp/1409103153/">Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves</a> took Reilly back to a more claustrophobic setting - this time a former Soviet weapons base in the Arctic (with side characters running around DC) and <em>somewhat</em> more realistic . There's still a bit of <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_%28James_Bond%29">Q’s</a> first law of unlikely but ultimately useful gizmos</em>, in that the heroes are given or acquire many cool gadgets that you’d never expect them to be able to use and you can guarantee that circumstances will arrive that require them to use precisely the toys they have on them, usually in some kind of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/MacGyver-The-Complete-First-Season/dp/B0006IUDXA/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=movies-tv&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1339661698&amp;sr=1-1-spell">MacGuyverish</a> way. Some of his leaps of fantasy frustrate me (the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091949/">Johnny-5 </a>robot was cutesy and there were a few too many occasions where the main characters died and came back to life) but it was a fun ride ).</p>
<p>What does all of this dissection and critique mean for <em>my</em> writing? While I enjoy Reilly and Star Wars, the stories I write are more at the middle of the disbelief spectrum:<br />
• <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/project-52">Project-52</a> would be a 2 - a murder mystery set basically in the real world;<br />
• <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/blueprime">Blue Prime</a> would be a 5, largely because I've pushed it into a slightly heightened version of LA and use some high-tech, but not implausible, gadgets. I use the tag-line <em>20 seconds into the future and 2 degrees closer to hell</em> as a set-up to get readers into the right mind-set about what to expect;<br />
• <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/black-storm">Black Storm</a> is shaping up to slot in around a 3 or 4 - the modern-day pirates and private military contractors are based on their real world equivalents, but I've taken the Deaver approach of shifting the bad guys' intentions and actions a little <em>towards</em> the Bond world, while not going as far as Reilly would have.</p>
<p>Overall, I enjoy Reilly's novels on a lot of levels, even if they're <em>not quite</em> what I write or like a lot of the more hard-edged books I read, his stuff can be great fun.</p>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="footnote1_tjiinkd"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref1_tjiinkd">1.</a> I know this from experience, writing <a href="http://www.bgmhall.com/blueprime">Blue Prime</a> as an attempt to take the concept of a comic book superhero and put them in the real world.</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote2_0rtulip"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref2_0rtulip">2.</a> This is a Simpsons joke rather than a typo.</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote3_1jr6bi4"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref3_1jr6bi4">3.</a> The less said about the crystal skull aliens the better.</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote4_et00df5"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref4_et00df5">4.</a> Think Gandalf the Grey, Kosh and Dumbledore.</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote5_4brns3g"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref5_4brns3g">5.</a> Argo is a great, counter-intuitive example, in that <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Argo-Hollywood-Audacious-History-ebook/dp/B009KNDJG0">Tony Mendez's book</a> (and the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1024648">Ben Affleck movie</a> based on it) has a ridiculous plot that should have gotten Mendez laughed out of every publisher's office, but he had the ultimate defense in that it based on real events (even if the movie was somewhat adjusted for dramatic effect).</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote6_p35onf3"><a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref6_p35onf3">6.</a> I <em>loved</em> The Prestige - it's a very clever and well-acted movie that sets up two mysteries and resolves them in ways that seem surprising, but are actually exactly what the characters have been saying since they were first presented - <em>very clever story-telling</em>.</li>
</ul>
</div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-rss clearfix">
<h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2>
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Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:36:42 +0000bgmhall56 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/5-6-7-how-adjusting-my-suspension-disbelief-helped-me-enjoy-jack-west-jr#commentsWhat's on my site?http://bgmhall.com/whats-my-site
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<figure class="field-item" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://bgmhall.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/website%20as%20at%20April%2019%202013.JPG">
<img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://bgmhall.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/website%20as%20at%20April%2019%202013.JPG" width="480" height="314" alt="" /> </figure>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>According to <a href="http://www.wordle.net">wordle</a>, the top 150 words on my site (excluding "the", "and" etc) are shown in this graphic.</p>
<p>A lot of this makes sense to me, given what I remember posting, but some just makes me go "hmmm" (like, <em>how often do I really use "instinctively" and the equals sign?</em>).</p>
<p>I'll generate some similar word pictures from my writing over the next few weeks and may redo the website every year or so to see how the content changes.</p>
<p><em>Next time: a deconstruction of what I've enjoyed and found frustrating about a series of books, with the goal of learning about what I'd like to emulate and avoid in my own writing.</em></p>
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Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:23:59 +0000bgmhall55 at http://bgmhall.comhttp://bgmhall.com/whats-my-site#comments